


And Sweetest In The Gale Is Heard

by mediumrawr



Series: The Madwoman In The Attic [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 19:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediumrawr/pseuds/mediumrawr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone ought to remember.</p><p>For Summer Of Giles 2010. A sequel to Hope Is The Thing With Feathers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Sweetest In The Gale Is Heard

 Giles was making breakfast when the boy came out of Faith's room. The boy was probably about twenty, with the solid body of a footballer and the innocent face of one unweathered by too many Friday night clubbing excursions. And the rumpled shirt and jeans of most of Faith's conquests.

"Good morning," said Giles. "Would you like breakfast? I'm afraid only the toast is ready now, but there will be eggs and bacon in a minute. I hope you're not for Arsenal," he said. To clarify, he pointed at the paper on the table.

"Who're you?" asked the boy suspiciously.

"I'm Giles," he said. "The flatmate. Would you like me to get you a plate?"

"Uh. No. Thanks." The boy scurried out, his trainers still untied.

Faith entered a moment later, only half-dressed herself. "Where's what's-his-name?"

"Ran off when I offered food. I'm sure you can make room his his share."

"Damn right," she said. "After I shower."

They usually ate in peace, reading the paper. Giles scanned the international news pages before flipping as always to the obituaries. Faith read the sports page, from headline to box score, like she had at six years old when she had been desperate for anything she might connect with. An on-base percentage was as good a way as any to impress potential friends.

Giles did not bring up the boy. They had an unspoken agreement. Anyway, Faith was careful and safe. He refused to judge.

"What've we got today?"

"Not much this morning. After I talk to Vi, we have an appointment with one of London's premier gang lords."

"And what's Vi got to do with it?"

"Nothing," said Giles. He presented her with a mug of coffee. "Today's her birthday."

Faith sipped. "Shit. How do you even know that?"

"It's what I do. Record, correlate, cross-reference. Always prepared." He looked back to the stove. "The eggs are done."

"So what do we care about a bunch of pretty boys with knives and cockney accents?"

Scraping the eggs from pan to plate, Giles said "This particular pretty boy controls something like a quarter of the illicit drug trade through London. What we care about, however, is his more limited human trafficking business."

"What, like slavery?" Faith's hand clenched, and not many things riled her.

Giles arranged three pieces of toast and four of bacon next to the eggs on the plate and placed it on the tiny kitchen table in front of her. "No, Adam has some standards. He sticks mostly to immigration and emigration. Or possibly it's a calculation to keep Interpol off his back. In any case, every so often he transports the sort of people we ought to care about."

"Huh," said Faith, around her food.

They finished their breakfast in silence. Giles showered first, so that Faith could run out the hot water. They wasted the morning. At noon, Giles called Vi.

"Hello?" asked Vi.

"It's Giles," said Giles.

"Oh. Hey! What's up?"

"It's your birthday. I thought I ought to call."

"Well, yeah. The crew here is throwing me a party." Vi was in Baltimore, where he imagined she must have stuck out like a sore thumb. The 'crew' was a small circle she ran there with Rona. It was composed mostly of locals.

"So," he said. "Tell me everything."

"Uh-huh. Well, you know Gunn? Used to work with Angel?"

"Charles Gunn, yes. You've seen him?"

"He showed up here about two months ago. I guess Angel and Spike were doing some pretending-not-to-be-totally-gay thing and Gunn got tired of the testosterone and moved out. He's shacking up with Rona now, I guess. He's handy, but- Well, it's weird."

"Yes."

"Like - well."

"Like?" He was sitting in his most comfortable armchair. Every home, to Giles's mind, needed several armchairs, so that they was one handy no matter which bookshelf he was using.

"I was going to say, like you and Faith."

"Mm."

"I think Buffy's in North Africa somewhere. She said everyone speaks French, and she's really tired of dust and poverty. Dunno what she's doing there. Must have been important. She wouldn't talk about it over the phone." There was a short pause. Vi sounded uncomfortable. "Giles, I think she thought someone was listening in."

"Is she in danger? Did she say anything that suggested duress, or -"

"No, nothing. I think she was just being careful." She hesitated. "She hasn't spoken to you at all?"

"You know Buffy," said Giles. "There will be no forgiveness until I've admitted I was wrong and pledged my eternal loyalty. And I'm quite immovable on this one."

"Fine. That's - oh, actually I wanted to talk to you. Some of our people are hearing about a demon that got moved from here to London. Big red guy, I guess. I thought, you know, usually they're heading the other way."

"Just one?" Giles rubbed at the bridge of his nose thoughtfully.

"Yeah."

"All right," he said. "Faith wants to wish you a happy birthday, but isn't going to admit it, so we'll pretend I'm forcing her to talk. Okay?"

Vi laughed. Giles stood up from his comfortable chair and went to the living room, where Faith was peering at videos on the laptop he had helped her buy. Giles offered her the handset.

"What, G, I didn't-"

"Take it,' he said.

She made a face, but she took it. "Hey, Vi," she said. "So how's things?"

Giles went back to his own room, thinking of demons classified by size and color.

Twenty minutes later, as they geared up for their afternoon expedition, Faith said "You know she's sleeping with Gunn."

"Vi?" said Giles. "Yeah." A knife for one ankle and a stake for the other. A case of bolts in his jacket pocket, made specifically for the folding crossbow at his hip.

"You don't have a problem with that? Gunn cheating on Rona? Or maybe Rona knows, and they're having wicked-"

"Christ," said Giles, zipping up his jacket. "What is it about your generation insisting that it invented sexual misadventures?" He took his keys from the table by the door. "In 1971 I seduced my father's mistress just to spite him."

"Hold on," said Faith. "1971? But-"

"I was sixteen, and I hadn't been a virgin for two years. Vi is capable of making her own decisions."

As they walked out of the flat, Faith said, "Shit." After a beat, she continued. "Was she good?"

"Not particularly. But getting back at my father was, well, exquisite."

They took a bus to the docks. Giles liked the bus. He could stretch his legs, and sometimes point out the little sites, sights, and spectacles of his city. "That stain," he might say proudly, "is forty-year old blood from a broken nose my uncle Billy got smacking a couple of Gunners fans around." Or he might say, "That little house was my great-great-grandfather's, when he moved to London from the country. He only lived there about two years, before he met my great-great-grandmother and they had to find a bigger place." Faith would tease him about marking his territory, but it was important to him.

The Gileses were rooted in this city, and the city had twisted and grown around them. There would be holes, when the Gileses were gone. He was last. Someone ought to remember. They got off the bus.

"Ripper," said Adam Fletcher, about five minutes later. He was short and skinny - not slim, or thin, but /skinny/. Wiry, maybe. All bone, tendon, and copper stud earring..

"Adam," said Giles. "Are you well?"

They all stood in a cavernous warehouse. They were Adam Fletcher, Giles, Faith, and six or seven young men with badly concealed weapons that were definitely illegal in this country. Adam wasn't young. His skin stretched across his face like fillo dough. He said "I was great before you brought a slayer to my place of business."

"Faith's with me. If you have a problem with her, you have a problem with me."

"Fuck. Faith?" Adam stepped forward, his hand raised to point, but there was nervousness in his eyes. "Y'brought Lehane? Here?"

"Yes, exactly," said Giles. "You're getting the hang of it."

Faith snorted.

"There's no need for this shit, Ripper." Adam's hand fell back to his side. "We haven't done any real business lately, not that involves you. Just a couple of those not-wights moving into be with their mum."

"Yeah," asked Giles.

"Yeah," said Adam.

"That's it," asked Giles.

"That's it."

"Huh," said Giles. "You haven't seen any big, red demons around?"

"Big red ones?"

"Like Clifford," said Faith.

"Who?"

"Never mind," said Giles.

"Okay," said Adam.

"Maybe I saw one like that. But maybe I didn't."

"Adam," Giles said patiently.

Faith cut in. "Listen. There are a lot of demons who aren't so bad, and I'm totally down with that. But when I'm making up my mind about what's what, big and red are big no-nos. And you don't want us to know, and that's a really big no-no. So - times comes when this mess blows up, I'll track down this big red guy and I'll kill him. But then I'll kill you, and you'll die scared. So cut the crap and we'll deal with this now and everyone goes home happy."

Adam Fletcher stood there, shocked. Giles concealed a smile.

"Well?" asked Faith. She tapped her foot on the floor with a theatrical flourish.

"All right," said Adam. "thanks for clearing that up. Getting everything out in the open. Usually we prefer to be quieter, but I guess if Scotland Yard's poking around demons we've all got bigger fish, yeah?"

"So?" asked Giles.

"Yeah, he was a delivery for some lawyer type I work with occasionally. I guess he's an earl's boy or something. Lives out of a mansion called Brownhall."

"And the demon?" asked Giles.

"Conscious, and totally free. Quiet, but - y'know, not dumb."

"Great," said Faith. "It's been great." Her body strained with energy. It had picked up the hint from her mind to anticipate a fight. If she didn't get one soon she would manufacture one, not out of malice but of necessity, with no other outlet available. Or perhaps she would go to a football pub filled with supporters of a club she didn't give a shit for and find a boy drunk on victory, and on other people's offered rounds, and fuck him senseless. Faith could be mercurial.

Adam said, "Don't you want to know the name of the firm? Wo-"

"We know," said Faith.

And they did know.

When they left the docks, having ensured that the gangbangers and the dockworkers found them appropriately inconspicuous, Faith asked, "You ever heard of this Brownhall?"

"Perhaps," he said. "I'll have to check my records."

She laughed. There was something about the thinness of the air and the crispness of the breeze, and possibly the clarity of the sun, which brought back memories of a romantic life they both knew from movies.

"Yeah, you laugh," he said. "Like you could even find the place without me."

She laughed again, and her hand found its way easily to his arm. It was a surprising gesture, but Faith was a creature of instinct. He knew he could count on her not to have ulterior motives.

Not like-

"Home, then?"

"Home," said Giles. "For the rest of the afternoon, at least."

"Great," she said. "Are we ever going to fight this thing?"

Giles clucked. "And if the demon can only be killed with seawater from the Straits of Magellan, under a waning gibbous moon?"

Faith stared at him, her jaw dropping open abruptly. Then she remembered herself, and adopted an accusing pose. "You're making that up."

"Yes," he admitted. "But still."

"Anyway," she said. "It _is _a waning gibbous moon."

"Waxing, actually."

Faith rolled her eyes. He smiled, and she grinned back. Having someone here, especially someone as open as Faith, brought such comfort to him. It was difficult to explain. Surely the tightness of his ribs had not actually loosened, nor the ache in his knees actually faded. Those things were ever-present. She made it easy to forget.

When Buffy had gone, that second time, he had found himself thinking of the end of his own life as well. Those thoughts had never truly gone.

"Knock knock," said Faith.

Giles started. He had become lost in his thoughts. He was getting old. He ran a hand through his hair and reassured himself that it was as thick as ever. "Sorry," he said. He reached out to her, either to clasp her shoulder or to draw her into an embrace.

She shied away. "Come on," she said. "No touchy-feely crap."

Unblinking, he said, "Of course."

Making a valiant attempt to spare them further awkwardness, the bus chose to arrive. Its attempt failed; they spend the rest of the ride in silence. As Faith fidgeted in the corner of his eye, Giles recounted the same landmarks in his head. He thought of a night he had, aided by charms stolen from his father's study, shared with beautiful Pollyanna Fitzgerald, she of the buxom chest and the short skirt that showed just a hint of her garters. He had been shown much more, that night. There had been countless other nights much the same, at the ends of evenings begun sneaking, bribing, and charming his way into clubs with Ethan. Each girl had been beautiful in her own way.

Home, he buried himself in his books. After twenty minutes making herself up, Faith muttered something about going out. He didn't look up, and she didn't wait.

Eventually, after hours of reading, the ring of the phone roused him. The caller ID said "Summers, D." He answered.

"Hello?"

"Giles? Giles, it's Dawn."

"Good evening, Dawn. Or - what time is it where you are?"

"What? It's, uh, early afternoon. Giles, I'm calling about Buffy."

"Has something happened?"

"I don't -" said Dawn. "I don't know. She just called, but it was weird. She said she loved me like three times. And, Giles, she wouldn't say where she was."

Giles went to the window. Though the city was never quite dark,t he splashes of illumination only emphasized the parts it missed. And it was only evening. "Did she say to call me?"

"No, she didn't say to do anything. But you know sometimes she gets like that."

Giles sighed. "Dawn," he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Buffy has made it clear she doesn't want my help, whether she needs it or not. And I have things to do now that don't include minding your sister."

There was dead silence on the other end.

"Dawn."

"Yeah. No, I get it. I'll try Willow."

The line went dead. Giles allowed himself to grit his teeth as he hung up the handset. Then he looked again at the page he had stopped at. It was the page he had been reading for five minutes. He went to get his wallet and his keys.

On the table by the door there was a picture he had seen Faith studying more than once. Willow had taken it, long ago when he had been a librarian and the others only teenagers. Buffy sat in the back seat of a car, turned mostly away from the camera, looking outside. She had been lost in thought and only barely smiling. It was a poorly taken picture, all things considered, with little of Buffy's face visible. It had found a place near his door in every place he had lived in since.

He stroked it with his thumb, just once, before he left.

There was a shop in a cellar not quite three blocks from his own building. He had been there twice, both times before he had left for Sunnydale. However, each member of the night manager's species was blessed with a series of vestigial tentacles dangling from its (thankfully, in this case, hidden) torso, and a perfect memory.

"Mister Giles," the night manager said, nervously patting back the spongy flap of flesh that adorned his scalp. "We don't usually have such, um, distinguished customers. I do have to tell you, we've discontinued the Council discount. It seemed, um, superfluous. Not my idea, you know."

"And you have begun selling live nixies, as well." Giles gestured to the small mesh cages that now adorned the shelves on the back wall. "Was that your idea?"

"No," said the shopkeeper, affecting glumness. "Thought they are one of our best, um, sellers. It's important to have a staple, in a business like this."

Giles narrowed his eyes.

"Ah, but you meant the, um, ethical objection. I assure you they're not, um, intelligent. Or, um, sapient." Nevertheless, the shopkeeper circled his counter to get between Giles and the insects' frighteningly human faces.

"It's still cruel," said Giles.

"Our customers decide what to do with them. We only, um, sell them. Now, can I help you with anything specific?"

Giles glanced over the shopkeeper's shoulder for a moment. He considered pressing the subject, but his first mission was keeping the peace. If the nixies were being sold to the particular tribe of _Ka'poa_ which practiced their ritual torture and live devouring, the most likely suspects, his interference would only cause more bloodshed. "Two things," he said instead. "First, a Class C warding object, portable."

"Class C," said the demon. "Um. I'll have to check the tables to be sure about the stock."

And he did, scurrying back around the counter to look into a pile of ratty books. He grabbed one and flipped it open. Poorly attached pages scattered across the counter. The demon consulted one of them, running one fat finger down the lines until he came to one which satisfied him.

"Ah! I have just the thing." The shopkeeper reached under the counter again, and this time retrieved a small wooden box. The lid he slid off to display a tiny glass sphere, within which was suspended a single point of illumination. The orb was fastened to a silver chain. "This," he said proudly, "is a Light of Jerome. There are less than two hundred remaining in the world. The Church stopped producing them after only seven years, in, um, 1244, when Innocent left Italy."

"This will do," said Giles. He slid the lid back on. "The other thing is three ounces of Fischer's Oil."

"Of course,' said the demon. "You know about its, um, unique storage requirements?"

"Yes. I intend to use it within twenty-four hours anyway."

"Ah. Excellent." The shopkeeper stroked his chin. "Um. Nearby? Um."

"Now, didn't you just tell me something about customers deciding - well, I don't remember exactly. What was it?"

"Fine," said the shopkeeper. "Three ounces of Fischer's Oil. Try not to, um, kill us all."

A few minutes rummaging around in the back again, the demon returned with a small glass jar concealing one of the most dangerous substances that could be procured easily on the black arts market.

A sum was demanded in the high hundreds of pounds for it, too, which made Giles long for the Council discount back. It had never been more than a euphemism for "at cost or we put you out of business."

Out in the friendly night Giles noticed a distinctly familiar black sedan.

His living room was freshly adorned with a pair of men's jeans, too frayed to be his own, and flashy trainers. Two boys in two nights, then. High, even for Faith, but he might still have been cleaning blood from a split lip instead. It wasn't a high price, and he wasn't the one paying it.

He knocked on the door of her room, from which two sets of indistinct sounds - one set quite high-pitched, the other set Faith's, could be heard. They both stopped abruptly.

The male voice said "Who's that?"

Faith's responded. "Chill. It's just the roomie." Then, louder: "What?"

"We leave a nine-thirty tomorrow morning. If you sleep in, I'm going without you."

"Like that'll happen," said Faith.

He went back to his own bedroom, which thankfully was not set against Faith's, and set his alarm, and dispensed of the last relics of his violent lifestyle, and slept.

In the morning, going to shower, he noticed that the jeans and the trainers were both gone. Faith was not so cruel as to kick a boy out of her bed, left to make his own way home in the night, but some preferred not to stay.

Giles was most of the way through preparing breakfast when Faith deigned to wake herself. She smelled of sweat and cologne and other fluids. Fortunately, she was on her way to the shower.

"Good morning," he said.

"You keep feeding me like this, it's going to go straight to my hips."

"You didn't have lunch yesterday. Or dinner."

"Did so."

"Beer doesn't count."

She shut the bathroom door. He shoveled more silver dollar pancakes onto her plate, and then drenched her formidable stack with syrup. Had she not been there, he might have made do with toast, but Faith would never know that. He consulted his notes over a cup of coffee before he began his own breakfast. He had hoped, of course, to do as his mother had taught him and wait for everyone to be ready before he began to eat. Waiting for Faith was making his breakfast cold.

When she did emerge from her eternal shower, Faith wore a dressing gown. For a moment, his eyes followed her walk. Guiltily, he dropped them back to his notes. He hadn't missed her intriguing smile.

An hour later, with their knives and stakes and crossbows hidden about their bodies and their newest supplies pocketed, they set out again.

They took a taxi to the edge of the estate, where a gate guarded the entrance. The gate was teen feet high and smooth bronze, and the walls were twenty feet high and stone. Both showed signs of considerable wear. Faith patted her hands, clearly getting ready to make the climb.

"That won't be necessary," said Giles.

Faith raised her eyebrows.

"When the Romans found London, the Watchers were there to meet them. There are few places which keep secrets from us."

And he put his hand on the gate and _thought_ and it opened.

As they walked inside, Faith remarked, "I could definitely get used to this place."

It was not grand, as London estates went, though there was plenty of garden space. The staff had plainly been cut back. There were no guards at the entrance, and no gardening staff had been present in at least a week. It was a shell.

They found a cellar door, which Faith had to smash open. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and broad daylight, and the only person who had seen them was the taxi driver that had dropped them off.

The cellar door led into a basement hallway, the right side of which opened onto an expansive, much-diminished wine cellar.

"So how do we kill this thing, anyway?"

"Mostly you stab it until it dies. The trick is getting it to stay dead."

At the very end of the hall there was a thick wooden door, reinforced with steel planks. A huge padlock sealed the door. Faith smiled. "Subtle. So how do we make it stay dead?"

Giles patted his jacket pocket. "I've got it taken care of."

"Great," said Faith. They crossed to the door, passing the stone stair that led to the manor proper. "You want to talk about whatever this shit with B is?"

"Nothing to talk about. She doesn't want my assistance. I will respect her decision."

"Yeah," said Faith. She smashed this lock, too, though it took three hard kicks and it scuffed her boots.

Giles pulled the door open.

It smelled like crap. It wasn't that it smelled just _bad_, per se, or even awful. It smelled like feces, as well as urine, sweat, blood, and whatever other excretions that might have been made by whatever lived here. In the light that filtered in, bones could be seen that were the wrong shape for anything that showed itself in Earth's daylight. In the corner, something large crouched in the shadows, and sprung.

Giles stumbled back. He tried to transition to a smoother sidestep and succeeded hallway. The charging mass struck his side and, still off balance, he spun. He tried to hit it in return, and missed, and fell. He landed on his ass.

The demon turned to face them again. It was seven feet tall, at least three hundred pounds, and all over it was a deep red like sensual lipstick. Its face was a narrow inverted triangle; its tiny mouth hid rows of sharp teeth they saw only when it spoke. It said "Hah. Kill. Plan. When time."

"I'm not following," said Faith. Her hand was inching toward the knife under her belt.

Giles gathered his feet under him. "It's just repeating words it's heard. It's not intelligent."

The demon charged Faith. She took the knife and set it against the move. The demon twisted to avoid it. Faith rotated her body to move after it. It grabbed at the knife with one hand. Faith tried to intercept the grab with her free hand, and it caught her other hand too.

She headbutted its chin.

It staggered back. Faith grabbed her head. "Jesus," she said. "Motherfucker's sharp."

The demon advanced again. Faith weaved through its arms and put the knife in its gut. It looked down at the knife, and then up again at her. It smiled, exposing those teeth.

Giles leapt. He clung to its back and tried to strike at the base of its skull. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have one. It staggered back and struck both their heads against the door frame. Faith followed them. She had another knife. This one was from her jacket pocket.

The demon's arms waved clumsily at the knife. Faith slid through them and stabbed it in the heart. It groaned through its clenched teeth and it was a strangely melodic whistle. Faith withdrew the knife and stabbed it again.

And again. And again.

It fell to its knees. Giles got his feet under him and then he shoved it over. It wheezed three more times and then it stopped breathing altogether.

"Way to go, Westley," said Faith.

Giles, clutching his knees, stared at her.

"What? I read."

He said nothing to that.

"Okay, I saw the movie. But still."

Giles laughed. His head hurt, which was predictable. The adrenalin made it hard to think. He began to fumble in his pockets: three flip knives with varying mechanisms. A worn, antique crucifix on a much newer chain. A slightly glowing charm, recently purchased, which had turned out to be useless. Lighter. Wallet. Keys. Ah.

On his inside jacket pocket, a small jar. He took it out.

Faith's eyes snapped right to it. "Uh, G? Major negative mojo."

"I know," Giles said. "I didn't have time for any of the alternatives." He pulled out the cork and poured the liquid over the huge, sprawled body. He felt the oil grasp hold of his mind. It did not cover much of the body at all.

Faith edged away from the proceedings until she was nearly plastered against the farthest wall.

He smiled at her, and then, the moment of truth, he pressed his lighter to the wax. His mind was the fire in his grandfather's lodge. The whole lodge had burned to the ground before anyone showed up. _No_, he said. Out loud. _No!_

His mind was his! As age took him and as his friends left and as his family perished, as all became lost, it was all he could trust. Damn it, it was his! The flame flickered and nearly died. Giles had to grasp at it to prevent it from completing its retreat from his thoughts.

"Um," said Faith.

"Sorry about that," said Giles. He looked down at the body, which now crackled happily like the first twig in a bonfire.

"Not that," said Faith.

Giles glanced up. She was looking down the hall. There was a young man standing at the foot of the stairs. He had aristocratic looks and a gun in his hand and poor posture. His suit was poorly tailored. The gun was loaded and cocked. Giles made a supplicating gesture.

"Let's be reasonable."

The earl's son laughed recklessly. "That's my property you're destroying there."

"Yes," said Giles. "And anything you try to do will make it worse. So why don't you -"

The earl's son shot him. As he fell back, he saw Faith move immediately in a flying leap right out of a film. The point of her stake smashed through the earl's son's ribs.

There was so much pain. And fire. The stones of the floor were burning. The ceiling was burning. And his mind. Ah, his mind.

"G?" Faith was staring at him. At his gut. There must have been so much blood, as well. "Shit, G."

"Faith,' he said. He forced himself to remember his patience. "A hospital. Focus."

"A hospital," she said. "Right." She hadn't looked away. The heat. It would have to do. He passed out.

In 1916, in the darkest days of the Great War, His Majesty's most secretive agencies had quietly contracted the Watchers' Council's most legitimate fronts. Their charge was the development of chemical weapons that might force the German troops to flee their trenches (or to die in them) and that could be implemented with utter secrecy. In the most sophisticated arcane laboratories ever designed, four of the Council's most expert theoreticians experimented with poison and relic after relic. The results were predictable.

Only one man survived the blaze that consumed the laboratory, himself with psychological wounds that bound his jaw for seven years. When he did speak, the cause that demanded his work was gone. Yet still he was haunted by an obsessive need to perfect the formula. When another blaze was contained only by the quick work of his minders, he was banned from all practical work. By the end, all he had was his mind and his name. The name was what would be remembered: Abram Fischer.

It was dark when Giles opened his eyes, but the sense of a person near him was unmistakeable. He was in a hospital bed. He turned his head to the right. Faith was his visitor. She sat in a chair pulled up beside his bed. She was holding his hand. It was completely numb.

"You're awake," she said. Her voice was raw. Her throat was bandaged, but not with the clean work of any doctor.

"What happened?"

"The whole house burned down. All the evidence is gone. I told them we were walking by any you saw the fire and tried to play hero. Weak, I know."

Giles smiled for her benefit. "It'll do."

"Yeah. Listen, G." In the dark, he couldn't make out the details of her face. "You've been out for a while, and I've been - look."

He waited.

"Sometimes, you know, you have this way of giving everything. Without thinking about it, or making a big deal of it, or - and sometimes it's easy to take advantage of. And maybe people don't realize how important you are to them, until you're about to go."

Faith paused.

Her voice small, she said, "Maybe I didn't."

In the dark, Giles wasn't sure Faith could see the reassurance in his smile. He still couldn't feel her hand in his, but he did his best to hold it tight.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeesh. Well, I did my best. Comments and reviews of all kinds are appreciated.


End file.
